Ian Brown, Solarized

You know where you are with Ian Brown. Having established his densely-layered, post-baggy sound early on, he's stuck with it through four solo albums, hence the familiarity of his latest ganja-tinted musings. Now 40 (such a thing once seemed unimaginable), he's still the Madchester raver in his mind: anti-authority on the harmonica-honking Kiss Ya Lips (No ID), anti-capitalism on the sinisterly sparse Upside Down, anti lots of other vaguely defined "bad" things.

The other side of Solarized's coin is, sweetly, his feelings for his wife, Fabiola Quiroz-Brown, the subject of the album's stately centrepiece, The Sweet Fantastic. He'll be horrified, but its distant horns and jazzish leanings suggest an acquaintance with Sting's Shape of My Heart - which, oddly enough, suits him. The title track and Keep What Ya Got (co-written by jobbing Mancunian Noel Gallagher) are similarly inclined, all melancholy atmospherics and mooing trumpet. They make the most of Brown's voice, which has never been a crystalline instrument, but is now little more than a mumble.

Too mystical by half, perhaps, but streets ahead of former Stone Rose John Squire's plain-Jane rock.